It looks like 2021 is going to be a very busy year for Geely. Despite only being three months in, the Chinese company has already announced a number of collaboration projects with the likes of Baidu, Tencent, Foxconn and the Concordium Foundation, and it’s even set to commercially produce satellites for realising vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) and vehicle-to-everything (V2X) communications for full autonomous self-driving.
Many of the tie-ups that have been announced centre around the development of electric vehicles (EVs) and associated tech, and as such it’s no surprise to find the company announcing plans to build a EV battery factory as it gears up for activity on the electrification front.
As Reuters reports, the new facility, which will have an annual manufacturing capacity of 42 gigawatt hours (GWh), is set to be built in Ganzhou. The total investment in the project by Geely’s technology group will be 30 billion yuan (RM18.97 billion), according to a separate statement from the local government.
The company’s technology group has previously invested in Ganzhou-based EV battery maker Farasis, the report adds. Batteries will definitely be needed for its own push into electrification as well as the assortment of projects it is involved in, including the manufacture of EVs for Baidu and potentially, Faraday Future.
Besides ramping up the know-how to fight off the incursion from Tesla in its home market, the automaker is looking to become a leading EV contract manufacturer and engineering service provider to give it an advantage over domestic rivals such as Great Wall and Nio.
The post Geely to build RM19 bil battery plant to aid its EV push appeared first on Paul Tan's Automotive News.
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